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Prospects for a fourth smartphone OS: matching industry intent with market demand

Research Viewpoint Prospects for a fourth smartphone OS: matching industry intent with market demand

June 2014 Ronan de Renesse

About this report

. This report assesses the potential impact of a fourth major Figure 1: Topics and companies covered in this report [Source: Analysys operating system (OS) in the smartphone market, after Mason, 2014] Android, iOS and Windows Phone. It is structured as follows. Topics Companies  Market demand analysis: identifies areas of growth in the . Mobile OS . Apple smartphone market where a new OS may emerge and the . Smartphones . Google corresponding strategic relevance to vendors. . Wearables . Mozilla . Vendor strategies . Samsung  Fourth smartphone OS profiles: SWOT analysis and ratings of Firefox OS, Sailfish OS, Tizen and Ubuntu Touch. . Industry partnerships . Canonical . Jolla  Market outlook: 5-year worldwide scenario-based . Microsoft forecasts by OS, market drivers and inhibitors, and . Nokia potential market disruptors. . Telefónica

Key questions answered in this report: Who needs to read this report: . Is there market demand for a fourth mobile OS and what . Strategy executives, and directors and managers within relevance does it have to operators and vendors? mobile operators who are managing the device portfolio . Which of the new mobile OSs are most likely to succeed and the development of potential operator-branded device and what impact could they have on operators, vendors strategies. and content providers? . Device manufacturers involved in the development and . What will be the impact of potential market disruptors integration of platforms and devices in the consumer such as new device categories (wearables, for example), electronics space that are looking for an alternative OS. sub-USD25 entry-level smartphones, and the HTML5 . Executives within the content creator, developer and developer ecosystem? publisher industries who want to evaluate new app distribution channels and partnerships.

© Analysys Mason Limited 2014 Prospects for a fourth smartphone OS: matching industry intent with market demand 6 The history of mobile OSs shows a high failure rate in the creation, development and sustainability of new OSs

Figure 4: Mobile OS timeline [Source: Analysys Mason, 2014]1

2000 2001 2002 2005 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Sailfish OS Key Symbian OS Maemo iOS Android MeeGo Old OS Ubuntu Palm OS WebOS Tizen Touch Discontinued OS

Major OS Windows CE Bada OS Firefox OS New OS BlackBerry Windows Phone BlackBerry 10

. The mobile OS market is very competitive. Of the 16 main mobile OSs launched in the past 14 years, only two – Android and iOS – dominate the market, with more than 85% market share of unit sales in 2013. . Market leaders such as Nokia and Samsung have allocated very large budgets to the creation and development of a new mobile OS, without much success. Scale, good performance and large-scale funding are required but are not sufficient to gain market share in the mobile OS market. . Value-chain partnerships, developer support and the flexibility of the platform are key elements that typically characterise a successful mobile OS. These can take many years to build, which is why Firefox OS, Sailfish OS, Tizen and Ubuntu still have a long way to go before they can make a significant impact on the market.

1 ‘Old OS’ refers to the first smartphone OSSs, which have been updated and renamed rather than properly discontinued or abandoned. BlackBerry 10 is a major revamp of the original BlackBerry OS, so the two are presented separately in Figure 4.

About the author

Ronan de Renesse (Principal Analyst) is the lead analyst for Analysys Mason’s Mobile Devices and Digital Economy research programmes. His primary areas of specialisation include smartphone and tablet adoption, rich media applications and services on mobile, mobile content and data monetisation, and over-the-top (OTT) company strategies. Ronan has been analysing the telecoms and media industry since 2003. Prior to joining Analysys Mason, Ronan was a Senior Analyst and the Head of Mobile at IHS Screen Digest, where he had overall responsibility for the Mobile Media Intelligence service and all related activities. For the past 5 years, Ronan has led the conception and development of various mobile media and technology forecasts, including those for mobile applications, mobile broadband and smartphones. Ronan has also written thought-leadership reports on Facebook and Google's mobile strategies, and participated in the production of Analysys Mason’s key primary research projects such as the Connected Consumer, Tablet survey and Consumer smartphone usage report series. Before becoming an industry analyst, Ronan was an academic researcher at the Centre for Telecommunications Research at King’s College London. He had numerous articles published in international technology journals and also gave various presentations at high-profile conferences. Ronan holds a PhD in Telecommunications from King’s College London. He has also participated on the GSMA Global Mobile Awards judging panel.

About Analysys Mason

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